europeana

Robert Falcon Scott’s South Pole expedition

One hun­dred years ago, on 17 Jan­u­ary 1912, the Terra Nova Expe­di­tion, offi­cially known as the British Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion 1910, led by Cap­tain Robert Fal­con Scott reached the South Pole. Unfor­tu­nately, the crew made it only to dis­cover they were beaten by their Nor­we­gian rival, Roald Amund­sen, by 34 days and to meet their des­o­late death.

“We shall stick it out to the end, but we are get­ting weaker of course and the end can­not be far. It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more. For God’s sake look after our people.”

Signed by Robert Fal­con Scott, this was the last diary entry of the famous British explorer. On the return jour­ney, all five mem­bers of the expe­di­tion die from star­va­tion, exhaus­tion and cold.

See Robert Fal­con Scott’s pub­lished jour­nals that unfold this tragic story, but also take a look at the unique video footage from Amundsen’s jour­ney, which is included in the UNESCO inter­na­tional reg­is­ter for the Mem­ory of the World.